In the security alarm industry, detection devices at a premise detect various conditions at the premise. These conditions may indicate fire, burglary, medical, environmental or other conditions that may exist. The security system then transmits the information to a central response center (central station) that then coordinates the response activities of others back to the premise. However, most of the alarms transmitted are false, which results in the false dispatching of police, fire, and medical teams on a large scale. This creates numerous problems for public response agencies, endangers public safety, and increases costs to consumers and industry providers.
Various industry studies have determined that the source of these false dispatches are caused by the user of the system more than 75% of the time—user error. Much of the user error occurs when the user is actively operating their system; that is, is turning the system on or off. When turning the system on such users are generally exiting the premise and are activating the system to protect the premise in their absence. Likewise, if the user is turning the system off this generally occurs when the user is returning to the premise. As a result, much of the user errors occur when users are coming or going from their premise.
In order to mitigate the number of false dispatches, the industry standard process has been to verify the alarm by attempting to contact the alarm users by telephone at the premise before dispatching a response agency. In such an instance, if the users are arriving at the premise, there is a chance of reaching them. However, most of the time, the users are unavailable because (a) they have just exited the premise—(which accounts for about 50% of the occurrences) or (b) the telephone line to the premise is busy—(some additional percent of the occurrences). When the user is unavailable, then the emergency agency, usually a police department, is dispatched to the premise.
False alarms are such a wide scale problem that many police departments are considering a no-response policy to electronic security systems, and indeed, some police departments in major cities have already implemented such a policy. Other departments are charging for response and many cities have instituted fines for multiple false alarms. If this trend continues, security alarm systems will become more expensive (through the use of private guard response or large fines) which will reduce the number of buyers who can afford or are willing to pay the costs that might be associated with these security systems. This will significantly impact the industry in a negative way and would be unfortunate to the public because security systems do reduce risk of loss and add safety to the persons they protect; not to mention that many thieves have been captured because of these systems.
What is needed in the art is a system to reduce the number of false dispatches so that police departments do not continue to take action against the industry and the owners of security systems. The system should be easy to use and should provide a user with the ability to cancel false alarms quickly.